Bill Tyson, The Savvy Strategist

Advice and insights from a practitioner of strategic planning and execution. The Savvy Strategist has had 38,000 views since inception (as of February 2014). The content is about creating a sustainable competitive advantage through the skillful combination of research, competitive intelligence, product and services differentiation, a strong value proposition, careful strategic planning, risk management and flawless execution.

"What a world of difference a difference really makes in business."

A quote from Doubling Down on Differentiation, July 31, 2012.

A note to my followers: as you can see by my Linked In profile, I have joined a major reinsurance firm and have decided to take a break from publishing. All content published in this blog is the personal view and research of Bill Tyson and has no relationship with any past or current employer or client that I work for.

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The Retail Insurance Summit Latin America 2012, October 8-11th 2012 at the Miami Beach Resort and Spa, Miami Beach, FL On Monday, October 8th 2012, I was joined by about 150 delegates who attended this Latin American Insurance conference. Hanson Wade, the conference planning company (headed by Nicola Freeman along with David Gonzalez and her… Read More ›

Recently, the expression “doubling down” has become part of the tech world’s nomenclature. “I think you’ll be pleased where we’re taking Siri. We’re doubling down on it.” – Tim Cook, Apple CEO, speaking at the D10 conference in May 2012. He also remarked that they are going to “doubling down on secrecy” too, indicating that… Read More ›

2012 Social Media Guide from CMO.com Very useful chart for guiding social media marketing. 2012 Social Media Predictions Accelerate Your Social Maturity Forrester Report Accenture Report on A New Era of Marketing: Create Your Upturn Administration on Aging: A Profile of Older Americans 2011 Statistics on the Aging Population Aetna’s Transformation – Must Read Strategic moves they are making… Read More ›

Introduction During the past year and a half, I have been working with a variety of different client companies to develop and improve their distribution networks. Distribution really matters when you consider that, on average, half of the price of the product is absorbed by activities related to getting that product from producer to the… Read More ›

“Sustainable competitive advantage no longer arises exclusively from position, scale, and first-order capabilities in producing or delivering an offering. All those are essentially static. So where does it come from? Increasingly, managers are finding that it stems from the “second-order” organizational capabilities that foster rapid adaptation. Instead of being really good at doing some particular… Read More ›

Figure 1: This is the logo of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau of the US Department of Treasury. Introduction My last post entitled: “A Prescription for Change” was about tackling change, one of the many strategic risks an organization faces. As every practitioner of strategy knows, strategic planning is a risky business so it… Read More ›

Introduction The creators of the Balanced Scorecard, Robert Norton and David Kaplan, view the customer value proposition (“CVP”) as the “heart of strategy”. They very succinctly stated that: “Strategy is based on a differentiated customer value proposition. Satisfying [your] customers is the source of sustainable value creation.”[1] A customer value proposition is an offering that… Read More ›

In this context, “the X-Factor” means a hard-to-describe force, influence or quality that has a positive impact on an organization’s performance. I believe that when an organization possesses and promotes the concept of accountability appropriately, the effect can be the X-Factor for the organization, and thus, result in a key competitive advantage. Going From Accounting… Read More ›

Once everyone on the strategic planning team agrees on what the definitions are (and the differences between) strategy, an objective, a goal and a tactic, then energy can be directed towards strategic plan development. There is a fine line between success and failure in planning and like any business endeavor there are basic needs and… Read More ›